7 Fast Foods You Should Never Eat - The Real Dish From Fast Food Workers

What do fast food employees really think of the food they serve? You don't want to know (Photo: Muy Yum)

This comes to you from those who know, the fast food employees of America: Those who grill the burgers, scoop the fries, and clean the lines. What do they want you to know about fast food that there employers would rather they keep to themselves? Lots, it turns out, much of it surprising and counter to collective wisdom.

If you have a fast food habit but are leery of clogging your arteries, padding your thighs, or losing a week to food poisoning, read on. Here are their top 5 fast foods to avoid at all costs.

1. Grilled chicken. Yup, those chicken sandwiches you choose because you've been told to beware of burgers. One employee's comment sums it up: "To keep it from sticking to the grill, we use three squirts of liquid margarine on the bottom of it. To keep it juicy, once we've lain the frozen blocks of chicken, three more squirts of liquid margarine are applied to the tops."

2. Tuna and chicken salad sandwiches. Seafood sounds like a healthy option, but this tuna isn't made the way Mama made it. In many of the sandwich chains, employees say, tuna is emptied out of a plastic packet, the water or oil is squeezed out of it, and then mayonnaise is added in equal parts to the tuna. Not to mention that some employees say the mayo is left out at room temperature all day. At other restaurants, employees say, day-old chicken patties and nuggets are stripped of their breaded coating, then chopped up and served as chicken salad.

3. Fountain drinks with ice. That extra large root beer or cola might have more in it than you counted on. According to those who clean the ice machines and fountains, the cleaning methods are sub par to say the least. Says one such employee: "In my experience, the machines usually are let go until they stop producing ice. For the machine to stop producing ice there needs to be an absurd amount of slime, calcium, algae or a combination of all three." Other problems: soda nozzles that are rarely cleaned -- sticky soda syrup collecting under the machine, attracting bugs, and -- when the machine is cleaned, cleaning solution left in the machine. "The way the machines drain during the clean cycle, you never get all of the liquid out of the reservoir. Even if you toss the first batch after a cleaning, there is going to be some residual cleaner left in there for the next couple of batches. And that stuff is nasty."

4. The salad bar. Wait a minute, isn't salad your healthiest choice? Not when it comes to help-yourself salad bars in understaffed fast food chains. First off, there's what goes into it. "So many things that hit the walk-in floor made it out to the salad bar." Then there's what the diners do to it when it's out there, protected only by a partial plastic shield. And finally, there are the dressings: "The customers did all kinds of horrible things to the dressings, which were refilled instead of cleaned out when empty."

5. Doughnuts. It's a catch-22 when it comes to doughnuts. In some chains, the doughnuts are made in a big centralized kitchen and trucked to the various outlets, in which case they're not fresh. If they are made fresh onsite, beware the cooking process. At one of the most famous doughnut chains, "The oil is only changed once every two weeks," one employee said. Fresh-made doughnuts only stay fresh for a few hours and believe me, you don't want to eat a doughnut that's been sitting on a rack. "Some of the racks are very close to the floor and when the line is cleaned, those close to the floor get splashed with the nasty water," said one disgruntled worker. And glazed doughnuts? Let's just say this: flies love glaze. And their little feet tend to stick in it. Same with gnats and other flying varmints. And I don't even want to think about roaches and sticky sugar coatings.

6. Burger patties and other grilled meats. Meat in fast food restaurants poses a health risk, but not for the reason you think. (I'm not even going to talk about what goes into them, which varies from restaurant to restaurant, but is pretty scary in many cases.) It's the cooking process employees warn about. In many cases burgers and other meats aren't fully cooked on the grill, but are moved to a "warmer" with the assumption that they'll finish cooking there. But if someone grabs them right away, watch out. Restaurant cooks also warn about ordering less popular cuts of meat, which may sit around all day waiting for a handful of customers to order them. "Never get a steakhouse burger at [Name withheld]. We're lucky if we sell three a day. And that means if we make one in the morning, and nobody orders one until around 5 p.m., you're getting a piece of meat that's six hours old."

7. Premixed shakes. This means those made of "shake mix" rather than ice cream. (Look on the menu to see if real ice cream is served, or ask.) A commenter says: "When I worked at [name withheld], we were told to take the overrun from the shake machine, which is supposed to be thrown away for sanitary reasons, and put it into a steel milk can in the refrigerator every day from Monday to Friday. Then on Saturday and Sunday, we loaded this overrun into the shake machine. The manager said the health inspectors don't work on the weekend, so no one will be able to inspect.I don't drink shakes from fast food joints anymore."

I hate to tell you, but there are lots more stories where these came from, many of them naming your favorite fast food joints. (Although a few do get high marks for cleanliness and freshness.)